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 Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2014 3:18 am
The pain began in late evening with sundown fast approaching, near to the time Detraeus would have arisen anyway. Instead of awakening to his instincts and rising with the precision of a finely tuned clock to the setting of the sun, pain wrenched him into consciousness with all the grace of the blunt and rusted blade of a drunkard stabbing itself into his spine and twisting. He woke screaming. Nails buried in his thin sleeping mat like claws and back arched, he groaned through grit teeth, posture rigid as a brittle spear and eyes shut. Panting, he forced his breathing slower as he gained his bearings.
Soudul.
Sundown.
He could smell the water of a nearby stream, hear the distant hooting of night birds just rousing from their nests, and the clop, scuff of his hastar’s hooves, the beast tethered several feet to his right. Another, more finite but less agonizing pain split across his forehead, making his temples throb. His skin there felt stretched thin — taut to the point of splitting against the bone of his skull — and he groaned again, a lower, more baritone sound lodged deep in his throat.
He would be fine, he insisted to himself. He was fine. He simply had to—
As soon as he tried to stand, another shock of pain rippled down his spine, the sensation again focused low on his back and pooling sharply at the base. Fierce enough to make him topple back to his bedding, limbs quaking. He snarled as soon as he had the breath to.
‘Breathe.’
In. Out. In…
Pain.
His vision spasmed, blackening out briefly before coming back in pinpricks at a time. Waiting for all of it to fill in felt like waiting for an hourglass to fill, kernel by kernel, and by the time his sight finally leveled out fully, he was shuddering again, his skin feeling like it was trying to crawl off of his bones and leave him to rot.
‘One step at a time: Get. Up.’
Detraeus managed, after an agonizingly slow process, to right himself. He tested each of his limbs and joints first: bunching his fingers into fists and then splaying them out, rolling his shoulders, rotating his jaw and scuffing his boots. He made an empty motion for drawing his bow, though he was not yet armed with it, the motions reflexive as he made sure that each of those muscles still stretched and functioned properly. Everything, to his great relief, seemed mostly in order.
Satisfied for the moment, he relaxed a fraction as his pain ebbed away with the worst of his tension. Still, though, caution itched at the back of his mind. He ached, and felt wary, untrusting of his body. If it was going to do this again to him anytime soon, he did not want to be on the road, where anyone — or anything — could happen upon him. So, after brief deliberation, he opted to delay his departure for the night, and take himself out on a close hunt on foot instead. Something small that wouldn’t fight back, just in case. Good meat for the travel ahead — or for trade, later — and it never hurt to be prepared.
That decided, he ran his body through the routine of exercises he performed at every rising. Gradually at first, and then with more confidence as the last of the lingering pain edged back. When he finished, he fed his hastar, and then armed himself properly: throwing daggers at his chest, heavier ones at his waist, light knives tucked under the clothes at his wrists and longer ones slipped into his boots on either side, quiver against his hip, and Avarice at his back. Feeling significantly better, once he was armed, Detraeus started off into the dark swamp, the last of the light of day fading out entirely and a skyful of winking stars disappearing under the thick canopy of Soudul’s fungal trees as he buried himself among them.
Not an hour later, Detraeus found what he wanted. Two adolescent magbits — old enough to have strayed well enough away from the rest of their flock and young enough not to know better than to stay above ground and out of the safety of their tunnels too long. Plump, too. Enough so to sell one for good coin and eat off the other for several days. He jumped, gripping the low-hanging limb of a nearby tree and lifting himself easily to a silent perch atop it. From there, he drew an arrow from its quiver and nocked it, holding himself still and waiting for the the ideal opportunity to release.
One.
He breathed out.
Two…
He lost feeling in the tips of his fingers first, his arrow slipping low in his grip, then falling with a light rustle to the leaves below entirely without his permission. Then, immediately after — before he could begin to question the logic behind the strange occurrence — the pains that had drawn him into wakefulness surged through his limbs with all the force of an internal tidal wave. He would suppose in retrospect, that it was lucky his body toppled from the tree as it did, not snapping his neck or breaking his spine, but instead crumpling like a snipped puppet to the underbrush without a single injury other than a few small bruises. In the moment, however, all that dominated his mind was pain.
Ripping, tearing, skewering pain: like a long blade trying to force its way out of the skin at the base of his spine and slice free to the open air. So gone was his concentration, that he could not hear himself scream as his body spasmed other than to note the persistent, throbbing hum of vibration between his temples. It robbed him of all agency, and that was what terrified him the most because — even in such an absolute state of disconnect — some panicked part of him cried that this left him vulnerable. And he could not be vulnerable. He could not be helpless.
Yet the rest of him was left incapable of being anything but.
He lost track of time from there, his throat wearing itself raw from first screams, then garbled snarls, and finally muted whines. A part of him was persistently certain that his back had split itself in two, the skin of his forehead had ripped back from his skull, and a snake was gnawing through his bleeding skin and out of the base of his spine. That was the thought he fell unconscious to.
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Posted: Sun Jun 15, 2014 9:45 pm
Malta had been out that day, and had a very pleasant, quiet walk, and was returning home to do... well, she hadn't been sure. She had figured that she would decidewhat she was doing that night on the way home. She'd still had time to do so, which was good because there were so many options! Would she stay in and cook up potions? Would she go out again and find herbs? Would she take her cousin up on his seemingly sincere offer to take her hunting? She didn't know. It was just one of those nights that was full of potential, and she couldn't choose.
It was a testament to Detraeus's skills as a hunter that she hadn't even known he was there until the Oblivionite fell suddenly from the tree like a piece of overipe fruit.
She noticed the magbits a little later, but they were irrelevant and ran away anyway. She could understand why they ran - for the same reason she didn't. She was transfixed, startled by the sudden appearance of the Oblivionite and the way that he seemed to writhe and scream and thrash. At first she was too stunned to understand what he was doing - stunned and unable to move as her brain screamed to RUN and flee as fast as her pudgy legs could carry her and her body wanted to HIDE and stay perfectly still. The dissonance stilled her body and chilled her bones and, for a moment, time fell cold and dead.
And then, as his struggles slowly subsided, time returned to its normal ticking pace. Her senses returned and Malta registered that it was an Oblivionite, and it was hurt. Fear slowly - very slowly - began to be replaced with concern. As his movements and cries slowed, she managed to get up the nerve to approach.
Magescans were dangerous, and she was afraid of what even a hurt and incapaciated one could do, but he was hurt -- Magescan or not, he was hurt, and she couldn't just do nothing.
She stalked forward cautiously, ready to leap away at the slightest provocation. Finally, she managed to get close enough to -- with her neck outstretched as far as it would go -- touch him briefly with her muzzle.
When he did nothing frightening at her touch, she cautiously sat next to him. She regarded his stilling form with her glowing blue orbs, touching her muzzle to him again, sending questing vines of magic through him, just to see if he was injured he had, after all, fallen out of a tree, and had been writhing in pain.
But she found little more than bruises, nothing she would ever bother to use magic to heal. In fact, he was the healthiest living thing she had ever checked with her magic. Really healthy. Amazingly so.
She looked at him, surprised. Healthy things did not fall out of trees... Well, unless they were her. But that was wholly different. That had been a matter of balance, clumsiness, plumpness, and overconfidence. She had certainly not been writhing in pain and screaming as he had. It had hurt, but...
But...
She frowned, crooning perplexedly to herself as she examined him again with her magic. He wasn't just healthy.
He was growing.
Rapidly.
He was like one of the seeds in her garden, pushed to sudden frantic sprouting by her magic. In this case, though, she had done nothing but look. The growth, it seemed, was concentrated at his back, his head, and his behind - which was tailless. He was face up and, being morbidly curious, she nudged the clothen covering he wore back with a gentle claw, noting the strange markings but thinking nothing more of it than yet another magescan oddity. His eylids, the ones on his face, were sunken in, but that was to be expected: Oblivionites, after all had no eyes. Even she knew that.
But this... bulge... filmed over by a sheen of skin... looked much like an eye, not sunken in by emptiness but filled out by something that was there.
A third eye! she thought, unnervedly intrigued. She had seen, from afar, that some Oblivionites had three eyes. She had heard that, when they got older, the children of the dark goddess were granted a third, true eye. And tails. And wings.
Wait... hadn't the other areas of growth been in the back of him? Gingerly, trying not to scratch him with her claws, she turned him over. He was covered with the cloth that Magescans called clothes, but she could see bulges at his back, which writhed like worms as she touched them gently. She pushed the loose, outer cloth covering back (and, incidentally, away) to see two nubs struggling against their clothen prison.
She pulled the cloth away -- it seemed the right thing to do. There were many layers of cloth and, briefly, she wondered why -- it wasn't cold at this time of year. But Magescans were not khehora, and she knew she would not understand.
Clearly, though, something on his back was growing, and it needed to escape. She tore the cloth away with her claws, trying to be careful about it and not disturb the Oblivionite too much - she wasn't sure what she would do if he awoke, or if it would be good for him to be awake.
As if pressure had been released, two limbs - Malta could only call them that - flung towards her, straining and flailing against a wet, membranous barrier that glittered darkly and pearlescently in the dying light. They strained and flailed weakly against it, as if trying to break through a shell. They were clawed, but the claws were tiny, like those of a bouken's, and scrabbled uselessly at the slick surface. Warily, she touched the membrane with the tip of her claw. It gave easily, splitting away and revealing...
Oh... she exclaimed mentally, gasping as she began to understand what she was seeing.
They were wings. Twitching, bony wings like a dunkel's but far larger. As the membrane fell away loosely to the ground, they ceased their flailing and folded tightly, still twitching. They were drying. She touched them with her magic. They felt vibrant, like the new green growths of plants in the spring. They felt new. It was beautiful in a way.
She turned her attention down towards the beginning of the two-legger's legs - how they could walk without falling, she did not know. Here, too, was that same cloth, and another bulge, but this one wriggled and writhed, and she could see that it - whatever it was - had already torn at the cloth with some sort of tooth. She no longer questioned what it was, helping it instead it with the rest. She cut away at the strange tight hide rope (covered with... artificial fangs? Pretty metal things? Malta had no idea.) and the cloth below it until, lashing free from its membranous and clothen confines, a whipping, vaguely spined fleshy object lashed out, striking her face.
She squeaked, though its tiny spines did little to her scales. It lashed around a bit more, then coiled nearby, like a strangling vine. It was a tail.
The wings and tail pulsed and, with a cautious, questing thread of magic, she could feel them growing, actively, like new shoots in her garden. She could feel, even as she touched them, muscles and ligaments and veins and nerves and flesh blossoming forth and twisting and connecting. It was fascinating and incredible - they were fleshing out and developing in front of her very senses.
For a moment, she was overwhelmed by it, and forgot to be afraid. She just stared as the little flat tip of the Oblivionite's tail bloomed like some fell soudanan flower, the spines on it first fleshy, than toothy. It reminded her of her smaller horns when they had been growing in, and she realized that that was what she was seeing: and Oblivionite tail, eyes, and wings were growing in on this Oblivionite. Where she could see it. Where she could feel it. Where she could understand it.
Suddenly, the Oblivionite race was a lot less terrifying and strange, less legendary and vague. They were real, and went through the same sort of growth as a khehora, only more sudden.
And more painful. Malta remembered the screams of the Oblivionite as he had fallen from the tree, and her own pain as her horns had grown in, and when her body had grown into an Orakovan too quickly for the rest of her to catch up. That had hurt too.
His wings and tail were still growing, and didn't look like they would stop anytime soon. They had to hurt. Just because he (she was pretty sure it was a he, though she wasn't sure how to double check) was unconscious now didn't mean he would be later, and even when they finished growing in they would probably still be tender. Her wings had been too, when she'd grown into them, and it had taken her a while to fly properly with them. She didn't want him to be in pain. She didn't like pain.
She remembered, suddenly, the drouil stinger in her collection bag and, thinking quickly, brought it out with pinched talons. Carefully, very carefully, she stuck the tip in between the wing nubs, squeezing the poison sac carefully before she removed it, nudging it with her magic until the numbing poison was in the same place as the wings. She thought about doing the face, but decided against it. Wings, she understood. Tails, she understood - to a point - but third eyes... she did not want to interfere with it. She hoped that what she had done would be enough to kill the pain, at least for a time.
She put it away and nudged him again with her magic, just to check again – you could never, she had been taught, check on a patient enough times.
He was still healthy. She felt less stress now, probably because of the numbing poison. The growth areas were still active, drawing on his energy and life force. She gave them a nice chunk of her own magic to help them along, before drawing back.
Well.
Now what? She had done all she could think of to help the Oblivionite.
Darkness fell, soft, quiet, and final, and she knew that she had to find a safe place for him, at the very least. But she didn't want to move him or jostle him too much, which meant here, which was decidedly not safe. She'd have to stay with him -- she knew it. She couldn't leave him, not while he was unconcious and weak. He was her seedling, and she had to protect him.
Plip.
Plop.
Rain began to clatter through the leafy boughs and drip into the swamplands. Instinctively, she covered the Oblivionite, now lying nearly on his front (propped up slightly by her tail), with a wing and lay next to him as the rain splattered onto her.
Glowing blue eyes looked up at the moonless night. Malta shivered, a high whine coming briefly from her throat. What was she doing? What on Magesc was she doing? She shivered in the cold mist that followed the rain and didn't know, even as she waited... for what, she did not know.
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Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2014 1:37 pm
Detraeus stirred.
His limbs felt weighted — heavy to the point of extreme lethargy, all but catatonic — and when he struggled to move again, a groan scratched it’s way out of his throat with a feeling akin to what he imagined retching up sand might feel like. He grimaced, and sank back into unconsciousness.
Various tidbits of information came to him after that: the sound and smell of rain, though not the feel of it; dull, throbbing aches and pains all over his body; and new sources of sensation. For a long while, he had trouble distinguishing between imagined reality and fact. His mind flirted with wakefulness, swaying in and then leaning back out again in a lilting dance. When he finally, gradually, began clawing his way towards proper awareness he had no idea how much time had passed, only that the pain of before was gone, replaced by a different variety of less focussed pains that were far easier to ignore.
And there was something beside him.
That fact alone was what yanked him fully into the waking world. His eyes snapped open. His body rolled, moving on instinct to escape the immediate proximity of — whatever it was — and yet, unanticipated obstacles interrupted him.
Instead of a smooth twist and pivot with the body he was used to, he tripped on himself, tumbling over the presence of something long, thick, heavy, and fleshy, and when he crashed onto his back it hurt like gravel digging into new, raw skin. He scrambled, snarling, and continued to skitter backwards with all the grace of a newly birthed hastar on all wobbling limbs. Whatever ‘intimidation’ factor he might have had over whatever it was that had invaded his space he expected had been largely, if not entirely demolished by his wincing and infantile stumbling. But regardless—
Tail.
Detraeus blinked.
Hand already halfway towards his waistline, expecting to find a dagger there, he froze mid-motion because he had not tripped over a strange, fleshy, fat log. He had a tail. Oblivionites grew tails. He knew this, of course, and yet, seeing — feeling — it in evidence felt like dropping the last piece of a previously impossible to decipher jigsaw puzzle into place so that all the answers clicked in, and why had he not thought of that before?
Of course it had to have been that. All the pains, all this time, in obvious locations natural for an oblivionite. And wings—
Abruptly, he remembered his company, and Detraeus’ attention snapped around. His tail — completely of its own accord and by no command of his own — lashed side to side in quick, stiff twitches easily likened to an irate or wary feline. Narrowing his eyes, he focussed on dragging in all the details his mind could muster: khehora, adult but young by his guess, undetermined sex, and rather big all around. Clearly well-fed. And feral, judging by its size alone but also apparent lack of a bonded.
Nominally, such a sight ought to have given rise to a far greater deal of wariness. Despite tending to prefer the company of khehora to Magescians, he knew many did not take well to strange ‘two-leggers’ and reacted with wariness, or even immediate violence, without a second thought. He got the sense, however, that he had been unconscious for quite some time, vulnerable, and open to attack. If the khehora had wanted to cut him several new openings in his body, it could have long ago, and besides that fact, something about it — between the posture and the slight quiver to its limbs, cold, most likely — struck him as unthreatening. Meek, even, though he knew if the thing sat on him in his current state, it was plenty large enough and he weak enough that it could snap his neck without much effort.
“Who—?”
Detraeus grimaced when the aborted question came out as a hoarse croak. Of course. How long had he been out…? And how much must he have been screaming to leave his throat so raw? Then, a fat, chilled raindrop collided with a bared section of his shoulder, jerking his attention back and alerting him to an array of things at once, but most immediately—
“What did you do to my clothes?”
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Posted: Mon Jun 16, 2014 3:25 pm
The night was not young anymore. The rain had continued throughout - not too heavy, or light, but a constant chill pattering that Malta could feel in her bones.
She'd been there for a while, holding her wing over the Oblivionite to keep the rain off of him. At first, it was really neat - she'd never had a patient of her own before (that wasn't a seedling or a plant). Unconcious, he was just that - a patient, a body to treat and take care of. She pretended to be a real healer, standing over him with an official posture, checking on him, nudging his wings occasionally when they tried to grow too fast for themselves, and generally looking professional and in charge.
But she was the only other khehora around, and make believe importance became false and boring as the hours passed and he remained unconcious.
She grew hungry, and had wondered if she could leave him for a little bit - just a little bit - and find something to eat. But she knew that she couldn't.
Instead, she nudged a nearby plant to blooming and producing berries several seasons early, eating first the berries and then the entire plant, from shrubby branches to its nutrient-filled roots as the hours ticked past, marked by the movement of clouds and the plopping of raindrops.
She wondered if anybody missed her back at the tribe. She wondered if anybody had been sent to look for her. She wondered what they thought of her now... what they would think of her if they found her here. What would she do? What would they do? She didn't know. She huddled in on herself against the rain, pressing slightly against the Oblivionite's unconcious form for warmth. She still feared him, though, enough to not bring him close. She wanted to keep him warm, though... she wanted to be warm.
Eventually, her vigilance lost out to her boredom and drowsiness, and she dozed off in the painful cold, shivering slightly. Eerie waking nightmares, without regard for time and space, plagued her, and she awoke, frequently and briefly, to sneeze and wonder, again, at what she was doing and why before returning to the half-dreams.
It was in the middle of one such shivering doze that her charge stirred. She didn't notice at first. When her charge moved away, she briefly and groggily half-woke, only to fall back into the upper layers of her dream. Halfhearted observations wriggled their way into the dream, though, devouring it like worms on a corpse until, with a shake to take off the rain, she leaned over to check on him.
He wasn't there.
Her first action was to wake up completely and painfully, aware of a simultaneously unpleasant cocktail of how tired she was, how cold she was, how hungry she was, how much of a headache she had, and how frantic she was about to be.
She didn't have to search long. Her glowing eyes took in the open sockets, the lashing tail, and the expression, and that was enough for her to know: he was awake.
She yipped in surprise and fear and stumbled to her feet, her legs numb from cold, sleep, and generally lying on them for hours. Her staggering was about as graceful as his own, and in her haste to put some distance between them, she fell back on her butt, her tail lashing around to bring its barb forward, an instinctive action that would have been intimidating, if her tail - and her whole body - hadn't been shaking.
She shivered as they regarded each other, uncertain about what might happen, and cringed, more in anticipation than anything, when he tried to speak.
"Um..." she said, her throat closing around the sound, "Ummm..." it was as if she had forgotten who she was, which wasn't the case. But no words would come out.
His first question was aborted, though she could figure out enough to get a meaning. His voice is hurt realized a more concerned part of her, the part that had played nurse, but it was drowned out by the rapid beating of her heart and the instinctive mental screams to RUN and HIDE.
She watched him in the loud, interminable silence for the other shoe to drop, for him to do something. Anything. She was afraid to know what.
And then he asked about the clothes.
"Ummmmm..." it was as though it was all she could say. His tone and expression were so like her mother's, on the many occasions that she had displeased her, that her posture instinctively changed.
She'd torn them away, but she'd had to... To let out the wings and tail. They'd needed to be let out! Had she done wrong? "I'm sorry!" she managed in a high pitched, utterly chastised, terrified squeak. Just because she didn't understand clothes didn't mean that they didn't have obvious importance to the magescans, whatever that might be, and she had ripped them up to get at the wings and tail. "I had to! I'm sorry!" She'd helped! "I'm sorry!" she whimpered, belly to the ground, staring up at him, "Please don't hurt me!"
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Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2014 1:26 am
Detraeus stared.
Of all the potential reactions he might have anticipated, her — he judged her sex from voice and pitch — cowering before him was low enough on his list of expectations that it left him baffled and, momentarily, speechless. Afterwards, as the message and intent behind her theatrics sank in, he sighed. If fear was her natural response, even with him in this state, he likely had little to fear himself, and while he wasn’t about to relax entirely, he supposed he was fortunate that of all the things that could have found him, this khehora did instead.
Tension seeping out of his posture and tail slowing to a more listless swish behind him, his expression softened, and he surveyed her once more, briefly, before returning his attention to his clothes.
“I’m not going to hurt you,” he said, picking over the tattered remains of his top with an assessing frown.
It looked, effectively, shredded beyond repair. Frustrating, but — given the two new additions at his back, currently furling and unfurling and enjoying a smattering of fresh rainwater — he supposed her, ‘I had to!’ made some sense. That, however, brought up the question of how long she’d been watching to begin with and why she was still here. When his focus landed on his scattered weapons and sliced-away belt, he grit his teeth. Seconds after opening his mouth, though, his gaze landed on her, and he bit his tongue, closing his lips and snorting out the nose instead as he gathered his weapons to him.
Arrows spilled in the mud. Knives and daggers scattered. Cloak soaked. At least his bow was undamaged, as well as the majority of his arrows and, amazingly, his quiver. Thinking of the coin he would need to spend on replacements for his belts and tattered gear irked him, but, when he was honest with himself, he knew virtually all of it was his own fault. A little research, planning, and preparation could have left him infinitely better prepared than he had been, and he considered himself all around quite fortunate that he hadn’t been eaten in his state of comatose. Or worse.
Then, just before standing, he noticed the state of his pants. His shoulders bunched, pulse somersaulting towards his throat and fingers clenching. He breathed out, staving back the budding panic forcibly and focusing on calm as he yanked his soaked cloak around his waist. Messy and uncomfortable on his tail, but effective enough for the time being. There was no way what remained of the back of his pants was salvageable for the moment. Stubbornly, his thoughts kept moving back to the khehora — who was still there, why was she still there? What strange, stubborn loyalty could she possibly have to a random oblivionite who — as far as she could likely tell — was only especially good at lying in the mud groaning? What all had she seen of him?
He shoved that thought away, gritting his teeth. It was easier, he noted vaguely, to cope with the concept of having more of himself exposed to a khehora rather than a Magescian. Different, somehow. But it still unnerved him, making his skin ripple and itch, and giving him the urge to scrub himself all over.
More important than that, though, was something else he needed to know. “How long? And why watch me…”
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Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2014 7:55 am
Malta looked up at him fearfully, like a supplicant expecting swift and merciless judgement. She wasn't actually sure what she was expecting, but considering the way many in her mother's tribe expressed displeasure with each other and (often) with herself (out of the elder's view of course), she was expecting at least a little pain. And, maybe, some shouting. And who knew what else.
So when he didn't hurt her, and said he wouldn't hurt her, she was somewhat confused. Wasn't he upset? He had been. He was. She could smell it on him, too.
She was relieved that she wasn't already hurt, but confused, and very wary. A dark thought crossing her mind: Was there something worse than being hurt that she wasn't aware of? Something more terrible than physical pain or being shouted at? If there was, she had no doubt that a magescan could do it.
And this one had come into his powers. Right there. Right then.
It had been fine when he had been out, but now, he was awake and, evidentally, not happy with her. STILL not happy, even after he'd said he wouldn't hurt her. She could tell, as she watched him look over the odd hide rope and the artificial fangs that she'd had to tear out of the way. She knew, at least, what the sharp bits with feathers on the end were - arrows. They were swift stingers that flew through the air and struck down beasts, loosed by the magic contraption he had next to him - magic not because she didn't understand how it worked (simple tension and release, like a branch or a tree root) but because it smelled of magic: Potent, alien magic...
"Magescans, light and dark both, are granted strange weapons that change and morph with them, as if they are a part of them... they are their claws and fangs, given to them because they have none of their own..."
She'd heard it before, in the stories that she'd been told of the two-leggers. It had been so strange, that they had to be given teeth and claws to fight, and yet were so deadly to her own kind and dragons alike. But she had no choice but to believe it then, and had determined that strangeness was just a magescan thing, or an ability as dangerous as any tooth or claw or flying air-stinger. She certainly believed it now.
I really should run away... she thought to herself, I really, really should...
It would be such a good idea. Maybe he couldn't chase even her down the way he was. She still had a chance. If she just ran, she could get away. If she just ran, she could be safe...
Somehow, though, fear itself chained her and froze her limbs along with the invading chill of the water. She was too scared to stay, and too scared to run away, and she couldn't tell if it was fear for herself or fear for him still not actually being okay.
She swallowed when he asked his question. "Um..." how long... she hadn't run, so she had to answer him... Otherwise said the little voice of her innoer orakoi, seeking to please, he will be upset again! He was calming down, and she didn't want to upset him any more! Oh why couldn't she run...?
"You... you fell down at dusk and its... um... umm..." She dared a fleeting glance to the shrouded sky, and gained nothing by it. She had no idea when it was, other than it was probably closer to morning than midnight now. "Been a while..." She didn't think he'd be happy with that answer, but she couldn't figure out an answer to the other part of the question, either. The more she thought about it, the more she didn't understand what the hell she was doing and had done, other than she'd wanted to and that it felt like the right thing to do and... and... she didn't know. "I-I don't know!" she said, cringing back slightly - not even entirely at him this time. She didn't know, and she didn't like not knowing. All sorts of scary things lurked on the edge of not-knowing. "I'm sorry, I - I just..." But, even as she stammered, no answer came to her.
His voice is hurt. observed her healer training again, stronger now that the flight instinct (not fight, never fight) was somewhat lulled. Gently, her training – meager as it was – took over, blocking away the fear just a little bit more. "Uh... um..." she began, "Is... are... Is your voice okay? I'm sorry I didn't fix it..." she said, her fourth... fifth... (sixth? No, not quite yet) apology so far.
That was nothing - Malta had apologized more than ten times in a conversation before; back when she was a little orakoir and her mother had been furious because they had been forced to rest on an island in the ocean between Eowyn and Soldul. Malta was still sorry about delaying them like that, but she hadn't been able to go any further with her little wings...
This was entirely different. "And, uh..." she swallowed, remembering how he'd screamed and thrashed hours - an eternity, it felt - before."Do you... do you hurt anywhere?" She quailed, at her presumptuousness of asking and at her inability to run. "I'm sorry!" apology number six (truly this time) tumbled from her maw, along with a stream of panicked words, as if they would somehow protect her. "I tried to stop the pain but it could have worn off because you were growing and all and that would make the numbing poison go away faster and I should have checked and I'm sorry!" she finished, panting and trembling. Seven apologies in, she again waited for judgement from this enigmatic being.
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Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2014 5:33 pm
Detraeus eyed her. His tension — at least in regards to his company — petered away with every subsequent stammered word out of her snout until there was nothing remaining but passive curiosity and a single persistent question: Who had abused and chastised her so much in the past that she now felt the incessant need to apologize to the world for her existence? For that was what it was, clearly, her apologies endless and empty of any other purpose, since she had — so far as he could tell — nothing to apologize for to begin with. The tip of his tail flicked in agitation at the thought, innately defensive, but he kept his words to himself and heard her out as he eyed the surroundings himself.
“My voice functions,” he said.
A hoarse throat was hardly an issue of consequence. Half or more of an entire night wasted spent laying in the muck, however, was, and he debated to himself, silently assessing his physical state. Weary, but not to an incapacitating degree. Sore, but not even remotely comparable to the pain of earlier. Hungry. He glanced in the direction he’d come from. Close to an hour’s trip back to his camp. He stretched his wings, thinking, and noted that yes, there was definitely a notable numbness at the root of the new growths. A light tingling and dulled sense of feeling compared to the rest of his bared skin.
“The remaining pain is negligible,” he said in answer to, he supposed, a variety of her voiced concerns, and he turned his focus back from the surrounding forest to her specifically.
Under normal circumstances, he would have left by now. He didn’t adhere to the concept of debt or unspoken obligations to ‘return’ favors — he expected nothing in return when he chose to commit a kindness and held others to the same standard — and yet, this case was different. Though he still felt no obligation to repay her, her insecurity reminded him of a too-often-scolded child and made him, as a result, desirous of easing her concerns and rewarding her efforts. He knew, had she been any other race or even sex, he likely would not have extended the offer and turned on his heel to return to his camp, but for the moment, all factors aligned in her favor.
“You tended to me,” he said at length. “Do you want a return favor?”
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Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2014 9:02 pm
His voice was okay. He wasn't in pain. And he wasn't angry at her. Malta stood from her crouch nervously. She didn't think he was lying exactly, but the people she knew stayed upset for a long time – hours, sometimes days. Her father had dealt with it by being out in the fields. Her mother by training in the training grounds for hours - or, now, by skulking on the other side of the tribal camp and ignoring her. Her cousins alternatively ignored her or tormented her and the elders... well, she wasn't sure if they had ever been upset with her yet. Apologizing rarely made them less upset - usually it made them annoyed, not that she could help it. The apologies just came out, desperate half-intentional supplications to the powers that governed her life. Sometimes it just made them disgusted with her and leave her alone, but that was preferable to the scolding - not good, but not as bad. She wasn't sure why he wasn't upset anymore, or if he was disgusted - his voice was so neutral and his face was very un-khehoran (and eyeless) and thus difficult to read – she was managing, but it was tricky - but he wasn't scolding her or ignoring her or hurting her so she wasn't going to complain. About any of the three factors. These things were good things; him not being in pain, her not being in pain. Nobody was in pain here. "I'm glad!" she said, honest happiness mixing and mingling with the fear, tempering it back enough for her chilled tail to wave with some semblance of enthusiasm. She shifted her wings, aware, again, that the chill in her tail was in her every limb and membrane. She was cold. She was happy. She was scared, but it was better than before. Anyway, he was clearly not in pain but, just in case... "I um... still have the drouil stinger, and I think it has some venom left... if you want it..." she turned to root through her bag when he asked... a very different question. She stopped and stared at him, the remains of the drouil stinger clasped in her mouth, but not for long. She seemed to forget about it, and it fell to the ground as she spoke, stunned. "A... return... favor?" What was he asking? Why was he asking? Was he asking if she wanted something? Or... if that was why she'd helped him? She still didn't know why she had helped him, only that she didn't think she'd done bad. People didn't offer her things. Sometimes, like Maike, they gave her gifts. Sometimes, like the elders, they took things she'd made. Though she knew about barter and trade and exchange of goods, she'd never thought about it in terms of herself, not really. Sometimes, though, they thanked her, and that was nice. Rarely in so many words, but she had gotten very good at being able to tell when she was being thanked without actually being thanked. She didn't know why people didn't like to thank others - she liked it. It was better than apologizing. But they didn't, and she had to understand that. Her eyes widened like a startled feline's. Was she being thanked?! By a magescan?! For helping him?! An odd, giddiness trickled through her, like a tiny stream. She liked being thanked, and he was thanking her. She relaxed, her tail wiggling with sudden joy as a pup-like grin of pure delight opened her face. She was being thanked! It was kind, so very kind of him to do so! "I..." She didn't want anything. She didn't know what he could give her. But she was so happy - absurdly happy - to be thanked and alive and appreciated. She felt the giddiness bubble up to her head. "No!" she chirped. If she could blush, she would have blushed. "It's all right! you don't need to do anything!" And then, overwhelmed, she turned and bolted into the treeline, but there was a bounce to her step, a sort of lightness to the way her chilled limbs moved, that did not speak of fear. Perhaps Detraeus had already done his favor.
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Posted: Tue Jun 17, 2014 9:58 pm
Detraeus blinked, staring off in the direction the strange khehora had bounded off in. He wasn’t sure precisely what he expected out of her, but this result, he supposed, made things easier on him and so he wasn’t about to complain. Not to mention, the offer alone seemed to have raised her spirits which made him feel accomplished. Warm, even, in an odd way. He nudged the emotion aside for the time being, tested that his cloak was securely fastened around his waist, and then stepped over to where his unasked for healer had dropped the drouil stinger.
Careful not to p***k himself, he lifted and examined it. However she’d applied the numbing agent, it had seemed to help, and while he didn’t anticipate any pain even remotely so sharp as during the immediate growth process, it never hurt to arm himself with free medication. So, this in mind, he wrapped and tucked the stinger away amongst his things, gathered the broken belts of his daggers, making sure he had all of them in place before starting off towards his camp.
Despite having spent a large part of the night unconscious, Detraeus found himself grateful that dawn was not terribly far off. He needed a good, thorough wash, a filling meal, a long nap for the better part of the morning and early afternoon, and then a trip into the nearest town with a market to replace his damaged goods. As well as, he thought with a slight frown, a new wardrobe overall. Though he had replacement clothes, none of them would now fit properly with the new ‘additions’ to his physique.
He snorted, tail flicking in mild agitation behind him. Fortunately, the culture was — obviously — entirely accustomed to such a shift, and Soudul was the best of all places for him to find what he needed, barter, and replace necessary components. By the time he made it back to his bedding, thoughts of the strange and complex encounter were long behind him, and it wouldn’t occur to him to think of the khehora again ‘til next they met.
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